US security board misses American Airways flight crew in New York

The Nationwide Transportation Security Board (NTSB) mentioned on Friday that it had issued summons to the crew members of the aircraft American Airways A aircraft concerned in a close to collision on a runway at John F Kennedy Airport in New York final month.

A Delta Airways The Boeing 737-900 plane got here to a protected cease on 13 January when air visitors controllers seen that an American Airways Boeing 777 had crossed an adjoining taxiway.

The NTSB mentioned a London-bound American Airways flight overran the runway with out clearance from air visitors management, forcing Delta Air Strains to cancel its flight.

The Delta flight certain for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic aborted takeoff and got here to a halt roughly 500 toes from the taxiway. At their closest, the 2 plane had been inside 1,400 toes of one another.

The NTSB mentioned it tried to interview American Airways flight crew three separate occasions, however the crews declined to be interviewed on the grounds that their statements could be recorded for transcription.

The NTSB said that the cockpit voice recordings from the incident in each plane had been overwritten and weren’t recovered. The cockpit voice recorder will routinely overwrite the recording after two hours until it’s determined to retain it.

The NTSB defended the request for the recorded interviews, saying that “the small print of every flight crew member’s actions and interactions on the runway are significantly necessary within the absence of cockpit voice recordings.”

American Airways mentioned in an e mail to Reuters that it was cooperating with the NTSB investigation and that “the protection of our clients and crew members is our high precedence.”

The Allied Pilots Affiliation, which represents 15,000 American Airways pilots, mentioned in an announcement that it raised considerations over the NTSB’s “latest insistence” on electronically recording crew interviews.

“We strongly imagine that the introduction of digital recording gadgets in witness interviews has excessive potential to enhance the investigative course of,” the union mentioned.

The American Airways flight had 12 crew and 137 passengers and the Delta flight had six crew and 153 passengers.